ENGINEERED NATURE EN_LS2

Bauhaus defined the aesthetics of the machine age. The ambition was to reshape society and provide comfort and health to the many with the help of industrial tools. Technology has evolved over the last 100 years, beyond what could have been foreseen at the time, and along with the realization of the limitation and environmental impact of modern lifestyles. Design is a product of its time and place, a new century of design calls for technological progress but also social and environmental responsibility. In an age where synthetic biology is becoming reality, Design is facing a new an unprecedented ethical dilemma. Not only are we to define the aesthetics of the bioengineered age, pushing progress and challenging the status quo; but also, often in radical opposition, question the longterm social and environmental impact of our work. “To make or not to make” is the burning question. 100 years on the optimistic and humanistic vision of the Bauhaus is blurring, as we are reminded every day of our uncertain future. As we question the past, we must be grateful for the progress that modernity has brought upon us, but also come to realize that the complexity of human behaviour and the natural world upon which we rely won’t ever be coerced and controlled. Engineered Nature is a conceptual project that questions the necessary yet perfidious hubris of designers; it confronts us with engineered nature in the shape of geometric and symmetrical trees. The objects are designed to be both attractive yet also highlight the loss of resolution and complexity compared with natural beings. The project is an exploration of the limitations of engineered thinking, an invitation to reconsider our relationship with the natural world, a call to collaboration with rather than dominion over nature.